The Chinese media may not like him, but Gary Locke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to China, was praised by ordinary Chinese.

Kin Cheung
/ AP

Originally published on February 28, 2014 11:05 am

Gary Locke may have won over ordinary Chinese with his conduct in the country, but not everyone was impressed with the first Chinese-American to serve as the U.S. envoy to China.

NPR's Anthony Kuhn reported Friday for our Newscast unit about an opinion piece in China News, a Chinese state media outlet, that called Locke, the outgoing U.S. ambassador, a "'yellow-skinned, white-hearted banana man,' whose Chinese ancestors would have kicked him out of the house, had they known about his future career."

Anthony reports:

"The piece lambasted him for carrying his own backpack and buying his own coffee in what it described as a ploy to embarrass less frugal Chinese officials.

"Some pictures of the brand new U.S. ambassador to China are causing quite a stir. There's no scandal, instead the pictures have the Chinese reconsidering how their own public servants should act.

"And it's all because of a coffee break.

"We'll explain: Someone took a picture of Ambassador Gary Locke buying his own coffee at Starbucks in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. And then, later pictures showed Locke and his family arriving at a Chinese airport carrying their own bags.

"Many Chinese were incredulous."

Chen Weihua, a columnist for the China Daily, the country's national English-language newspaper, told NPR's Melissa Block at the time: "I think people look at him like a hero."

Even in those early days, the former commerce secretary and two-term Washington governor was criticized by China's state-run media. As NPR's Louisa Lim noted in a story, a party-controlled newspaper said Locke's posting in China was a neocolonialist plot "to strengthen pro-U.S. forces in China."